


Rekindling

by Lion_owl



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Episode: s06e25 The Sound of Her Voice, Established Relationship, For an exchange, M/M, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 11:58:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10099568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lion_owl/pseuds/Lion_owl
Summary: Lisa Cusak encouraged everyone to take a long hard look at where their lives were going, and Worf was no exception.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katiemariie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiemariie/gifts).



> It's finally ready! I had no idea what to do with this and i'm so nervous. I hope you like it, katiemariie...
> 
> Many thanks go to my lovely friends [prisdreamsbravely](http://prisdreamsbravely.tumblr.com/) and [writhingbeneathyou](http://writhingbeneathyou.tumblr.com/) for cheering me on and also beta-reading this thing.

_“I never shook her hand and I never saw her face, but she made me laugh and she made me weep. She was all by herself and I was surrounded by my friends, yet I felt more alone than she did. We've grown apart, the lot of us. We didn't mean for it to happen but it did. The war changed us, pulled us apart. Lisa Cusak was my friend. But you are also my friends, and I want my friends in my life because someday we're going to wake up and we're going to find that someone is missing from this circle, and on that day we're going to mourn, and we shouldn't have to mourn alone. To Lisa and the sweet sound of her voice.” ~Miles O’Brien_

 

* * *

 

“What do you want me to say?” Worf asked, knowing perhaps his voice was somewhat gruff and not entirely inclined to alter that fact. He was feeling a little aggrieved towards Captain Sisko for ordering him to take a turn occupying Captain Cusak when there were other things he could be doing.

“Just – tell me something about your life,” she said, in that irritatingly calm voice of hers.

“There is nothing going on in my life.”

“Do you think I’ll believe that?” she asked.

“What does it matter to you anyway?” he snapped.

“You don’t need to be so rude, Commander.” She told him, coolly, and he felt a tinge of guilt. This woman was all alone out there, of course she wanted to talk. But not enough guilt to answer her question.

“If you want to talk, tell me about yourself.” He said. That was a good compromise as far as he was concerned.

“No, I don’t think so.” He could have sworn he heard a note of hurt in her voice, though perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him.

“Captain.”

It was too late, she’d cut off his terminal. Very well. He could get back to filling out his report in peace.

*

All the next day, his conversation with Cusak – if it could be called a conversation – played on his mind, ate away at him: his brusqueness, her ‘hanging up’ on him; to use an old Earth idiom. He felt…

Guilty. As much as he tried to push the thought away, it was undeniable. He felt guilty.

When twenty-one hundred hours rolled around, it was his turn to take a shift talking to her again. Would she be willing? Did he deserve her company?

“Commander Worf!” the comm line in his quarters crackled to life.

“Captain Cusak. I do apologise for yesterday, I – ”

“Oh forget it,” she interrupted him. “Now tell me, what’s going on in your life? Do you have a partner?”

Relieved to feel like he’d been offered forgiveness he wasn’t sure he deserved, he felt obliged to talk. Biting back an exasperated noise, he began his story:

“There’s a Ferengi back on Deep Space Nine, his name is Quark, and he…”

 

* * *

 

 Two hundred bars. Two hundred bars of gold-pressed latinum! It wasn’t enough to buy a moon, or even a ship, but it was two hundred bars of latinum, in his pocket. Oh and how thrilled he was to have finally beaten Odo. How unfortunate it was that the constable could never know of his failure. He had a bounce in his step as he walked back to his quarters.

When he arrived at his destination, however, his guard went up immediately when he heard the sound of someone moving around in there, and when the door slid open to admit him before he could get his hand up to the keypad, indicating that it was unlocked…

…and almost dropped the bottle he was carrying.

Someone had tidied his quarters. Someone had actually gone through the chaos he’d been putting off addressing and given the room some semblance of order. And not just that, they’d also gone to the effort of laying out a spread on his dining table, set with two places.

Then Worf emerged from the bedroom, and the bottle did slip from Quark’s fingers. Luckily for Quark’s accounts, Worf’s swift reflexes came to the rescue and he caught it before it hit the floor, and placed it on the table undamaged.

“What are you…” Quark realised he still had his hand floating in front of him and dropped it to his side. “What are you doing here? I was beginning to think you had forgotten you have your own access code to my quarters.”

They continued to stand in awkward silence for a good few minutes before Worf finally spoke: “I have been… reliably informed of my negligence towards our relationship. I came to make amends.”

“That’s…” he didn’t know what that was – sweet? Maybe. Confusing? Definitely. He laughed nervously. “and just who would that reliable source have been?” Quark betted Jadzia.

“It is a long story,” Worf said.

 _Oh no, you’re not getting off that easily_ , Quark thought, plonking himself on the sofa and crossing his arms stubbornly. “Tell it.”

“She was infuriating.”

“Who? Jadzia?”

“Captain Cusak.” Worf said, lingering by the table for a moment before coming to join Quark on the sofa. “She was a Starfleet Captain who was stranded on a planet, Chief O’Brien managed to establish a two way comm-link with her, and we all took shifts talking to her... we had never met her, but it was like she knew everything about us. It was impressive.”

“But infuriating.” Quark finished, hesitantly moving a hand to Worf’s knee; when there was no protestation, he shuffled closer. “I’d like to meet her.”

“She’s dead.” Worf, as blunt as ever.

“Oh.”

There was silence then, neither man really sure what to say. Eventually, Quark broke it:

“So what’s she got to do with the spread, anyway?” he asked, gesturing towards the table.

“She…”

More silence, thick and a little awkward between them; it had been at least eight months since either of them had even paid a visit to each other’s quarters’, and not entirely for lack of trying on Quark’s part. Now here they were, and it almost felt like they had become strangers again.

“Continue,” Quark prompted. “She what?”

“Made us all realise we’d been neglecting each other, that the war had pushed us apart,” Worf eventually admitted.

“And that’s why the spread.” Quark concluded.

“Yes. I – you are important to me. I do not wish to lose you.”

That was… he didn’t know what to think. He’d all but given up on getting Worf back, and he was in half a mind to berate his partner for springing all this on him in such a manner. He wanted to scream at Worf; he also wanted to cling to him and beg him never to let them drift apart again.

He opted for the latter, swinging one of his legs over Worf’s, and pressed him into the back of the couch, kissing him, and Worf’s fingers were caressing his lobes for the first time in _far too long,_ and _oh,_ it was good.


End file.
